Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
He may have gone, but I’m sure the ghost of The Publican still haunts the board, and he will have a cheeky read now and again. Time will tell if his views prove to be true or not, but we all hope the current glimmer of light turns into a shining beacon of glory, and we all have enough money to buy that fully loaded Kia Sorento I’m sure we’ve all had our eye on.
The Publican
Your meltdown here is understandable, which I imagine is mainly borne out of the disappointment we’ve all felt. However, as Ian Dury sang, we have reasons to be cheerful. one, two three.
It may prove to be a stay of execution, but with the top end management no longer hindered by the Scarlet Blimpernell, I am reserving judgement.. for now. I don’t believe £1.8m would have been parted with without a pretty clear route map as to how they intend to go forwards.
It’s fairly well documented that gold mines in Ghana don’t always operate in a straight line, but we just have to hope that their plans to get substantial money out is via declared gold production and therefore increasing share price (and maybe selling it wholesale), and not ‘other means’. If it’s the former, then we should still finally benefit.
Edzi
I think these are all good points, and fairly consistent with what I’ve heard. It’s not strange or surprising that Bill allegedly wanted it to fail, even as a big shareholder. Why own a percentage of the shares when you can own all of them? So the ‘take it down and buy it back for nowt’ theory has merit. Although still a substantial shareholder, Bill/Paracale don’t own the majority of them, so his influence is now much more limited. I reckon all of the other big shareholders are massively pleased about that.
I think the most positive thing is the change at the top. I only know a little of what has gone on there, but as a result, personally, I’m happy BT has gone, and Paracale aren’t mining it. However…it’s Ghana and it’s Angela’s home turf, and all that goes with that. The press surrounding her is, shall we say, mixed! But it certainly wasn’t going anywhere with Bill, so we’ve had the best result in the circumstances for this stage in proceedings. As for 1.8m only keeping the lights on for six months, I doubt it. They’re not going to jump through all these hoops in order to have a very short term stay of execution, so they will know stuff about potential recovery that we don’t, which will have given people enough confidence to still see this as a worthwhile project. Otherwise they’d have turned the lights off right now and not wasted any more time/money. The AGM will be an interesting forum this time round!
Sometimes you read something negative on here, and you fear that the person may have a valid opinion and/or even know something worth knowing. Then you look again, realise that they write like a challenged primary school child, and relax!
After the initial gold production and subsequent future estimates, it was only fairly recently that they were saying how they had to spend money to increase production yet further. Then for some unknown reason, they appeared to be completely unable to produce any gold much at all. Yeah right!
As for AIMS, I don’t think half a dozen suits sitting in an air conditioned office in Kuala Lumpur want a gold mine in Ghana and a load of ancient JCB’s. So I imagine they’d take whatever they can get for their bit.
All a game as others say, engineered for the benefit of those who know the game well.
Massive dilution and relisting would now appear to be a huge result for small shareholders. I guess we haven’t got long to find out.
Jdt
Good post. You could probably have quoted any number of missed deadlines and promises which never have materialised too!
Kenny
My thoughts as well. And I can think of a number of reasons why they wouldn’t want to tell us about how much gold is being produced. None of them are good!
As for Angela List (and all the directors come to that) their connections are supposedly so strong that they can’t find modest funding for what are supposedly mines with absolutely huge potentially? Yet another thing that doesn’t ring true.
And for those who think smaller shareholders don’t matter when it comes to being treated properly, as a general principal, one day such companies might need those shareholders for additional funding, so why would you alienate them?
I have my own theories, but probably not legal to post them here!
Edzi
I do get where you’re coming from, and it looks like you’ve had the same kind of bulls**t holding messages back from the company that we all have, and are staying somewhat optimistic on the strength of those. I get that.
However, this is (until delisting) an AIM company which has responsibilities to shareholders. Nothing has ever rung true about their statements, so I think it’s quite reasonable, when no one has been able to get access their money for many months, to ask what the hell is going on, and where the main players are hiding out. Oh, and also what gold is being produced and where it is! Not every communication has to be in a formal RNS. It’s time more of us demanded information from the board. This is not (yet) a private company!
There comes a time when “News is coming soon” just doesn’t wash any more. We’re way past that time. Anyone heard or seen anything of Angela List commenting on Goldstone? Only things you read about Angela List on the internet are generally either allegations of historic wrongdoing, or courts actually banning her from being a director of a company! Where’s CEO Emma Priestley? Where is Goldstone’s PR company, which actually does zero PR? What total and utter contempt everyone outside their inner circle is treated with!